Lab personnel are currently involved in several research projects dealing with Quaternary environmental change and/or archaeological investigations. Foremost among these are projects in Namibia and Botswana, in southern Africa, funded by the National Science Foundation and National Geographic Society. Our studies in Namibia involve examining the OSL ages of relict sand dunes, raised marine terraces and relict fluvial deposits in the valleys of west-flowing rivers to reconstruct past environments in the region. We are linking this evidence with other evidence of environmental change from studies of cave speleothems and spring and waterfall tufas. Our work in Botswana is at the eastern end of the now-dry Lake Ngami basin that contained a sizeable lake in the late 1800s according to European explorers such as David Livingstone. We are examining fluvial and lake sediments in this area in order to develop and record of lake level fluctuations and river activity during the late Quaternary. A chronology for the lake events will be based on OSL dating of fluvial sands and diatomites with organic-rich strata dated by AMS radiocarbon. The lake history that we develop will be linked to archaeological studies being conducted by Larry Robbins of Michigan State University who is seeking evidence of the first pastoralists in this part of southern Africa. In a related project funded by the National Geographic Society, and in collaboration with Eugene Marais of the Namibian Museum of Natural History, we are examining the characteristics of psamophilous insects on sand surfaces of different age. Chronologies for sand dunes being studied are based on OSL analysis.
In the USA we are currently collaborating with David Leigh of the Department of Geography at Georgia to assess the degree of bioturbation in the sandy areas of the Fort Bragg military base. The study is funded by the US military. The work involves detailed OSL analysis of samples at different depths in soil profiles and should eventually allow us to determine how useful these sediments are in archaeological and paleoenvironmental studies, based on the degree of reworking by animals and plants that we uncover.
In addition to these sizeable projects the lab is also involved in archaeological and paleoenvironmental research in Egypt and Ethiopia, and is collaborating on studies of glacial deposits in the northeastern US.